On the 27th February the party was again in motion, but their progress was slow. Much time was spent in constructing pathways in ravines and clefty land otherwise inaccessible, and in finding fords over streams, and passages across swamps. To one ford Captain Grey particularly alludes. On the 27th March, he and his party sought for a ford across a river about a hundred yards wide in S. Lat. 15° 49´, E. Long. 125° 6´, but their efforts were fruitless. It therefore appeared inevitable that the winding of the river should be followed, or the party branched off in another direction to find an open route in advance. This surmise was not very agreeable. Auger pondered a little over this aspect of the journey, and soon resolved to make a survey of the stream untrammelled by the presence of any one. Accordingly, disposing of a hasty breakfast, he started alone to the river, and returned in about an hour reporting he had found one. The ponies were at once moved on, and as they wound through it following a circuitous course, it was nowhere less than knee deep, but on each side, at times, the water was dangerously high. “I could not,” writes the Captain, “but admire the perseverance of Auger, in having discovered so intricate a ford as this was.”[[319]]
Two or three nights before finding this ford he tied himself among the branches of a stunted acacia-tree, and shaken by the wind slept as soundly as in a cradle rocked by an attentive nurse. He did this to escape the wet and chills of the stony ground on which the travellers bivouacked and rested during the darkness.
Much labour was given in tracing the courses of rivers, the direction of mountain ranges, and acquiring information of the physical features of the country, and of its natural history.[[320]] All these services were not accomplished without much exertion and diligence. To scale the mountain side, to creep down the perilous declivity, to wade the morass, to traverse a wild country torn into fissures, and encumbered by rocks and scrubs and a dense vegetation, were but their common daily task; but when to these exertions are added the trials arising from privation, constant exposure to the sun and the storm, the bare shelter by night of some overhanging cliff or frail tent, with the discomfort of being, for days together, unable to undress or wash themselves, a faint glimpse only is caught of the harassing and difficult nature of their duties, their weariness, their sufferings and hardships.
The mode of refreshing themselves by washing was as primitive as inconvenient, but the trying nature of the service led them to find contentment in the roughest resources. Full dressed, they often plunged into the lakes to scrape and wash away the accumulations of days from their persons and clothes; and on emerging from the waters, bearing their dripping suits on their backs, they ran about to prevent colds or rheumatic seizures, while the sun steamed off the moisture from their threadbare garments.
Corporal Auger in these wanderings was the chief dependent. Uncompromising, he was straightforward in his duties; enterprising, he feared nothing. On most occasions he was sent ahead of the party to pace the distance, to find the track through regions of country covered with rank grass more than fourteen feet high, and to discover fords to assist the progress of the wayfarers and thus prevent depressing and harassing detours or returns. The moral courage of that man must indeed have been great, who was the first to penetrate a shrouded and unbroken stretch of solitude, unaware of the dangers in which his every step might suddenly have involved him.
The expedition had now penetrated two rivers beyond the Glenelg and Prince Regent, and then turned towards Hanover Bay. On 1st April they started, encountering difficulties of a character similar to those already borne with such cheerfulness and fortitude. Seven days of their journey found private Mustard crippled from falling into a crevice in the rock. Here the Captain, though suffering himself from the wound in his hip, yielded his horse for Mustard’s convenience. On the 15th April, the party reached Hanover Bay, having lost nearly all their live stock and fifteen of their ponies. A few more days were occupied in collecting the stores and shipping them, when the expedition sailed for the Isle of France and arrived on the 17th May. The three sappers were landed in a very sickly and emaciated state, and during their stay at the Mauritius were under medical treatment in hospital.
On the 27th January, nineteen non-commissioned officers and privates of the detachment serving with the naval force under the command of Lord John Hay at San Sebastian, were present with General O’Donnell’s army in an attack on the village of Orio, and burnt and sank several flat-bottomed boats under the fire of musketry from the opposite side of the river.
On the following day, at the request of the Spanish general, the same sappers were despatched to Usurvil to intrench and fortify a large garden at the outskirts of the village. The work was instantly commenced; but when the party was about to destroy the bridge which had been partially broken, General O’Donnell changed his intention and the sappers returned to San Sebastian. Shortly after, the detachment marched with the marine battalion to Oyarzun to cover the operations of General O’Donnell at Bera.
About this period the available men of the party fitted up the ‘Columbia’ steamer for the accommodation of troops, and a storehouse for the use of the squadron. At Passages, also, the carpenters converted the church into a commissariat depôt for stores and provisions, and strengthened and improved the fortifications around San Sebastian and the heights. All the works were carried out with difficulty; for the Spanish authorities could scarcely command the use of a plank or even a nail for their purposes, and it was only by the force of habitual and urgent requisitions, that they could be induced to press for any materials for the service of the department.
By the ‘Alonzo’ transport a reinforcement of eleven rank and file arrived in May, increasing the detachment to thirty-one of all ranks. Late in the month, these men, with others of the party, were, at the recommendation of General O’Donnell, detached to Casa Aquirre on the left of Venta, to render it sufficiently defensive to receive the garrison of Astigaraga in the event of its being compelled to retire. The working party consisted of a company of the Spanish marine battalion of seventy soldiers and twenty peasants, and the position was completed with the necessary works by March, 1839.